Tau Empire: Part 4, HQ's (They're actually good now!)

Seeing the new Tau HQ's

The new Tau HQ's are awesome. They have awesome 12'' auras, cool gunline properties, extra equipment that can buff a large unit, they're good. Which is totally different from before where you wanted to limit your point exposure to the HQ's and you're no longer forced to take a battlesuit in each army (no more 1+ rules!).  Now you might even be interested to know that battlesuits can be more than just a few gun placements with a bodyguard: they can buff things (Helloooo Puretide Engram Neurochip)! Now, to be fair, they aren't necessarily amazing choices like you'd get in other armies (GK and Space Wolves come to mind) but they are definitely great to have and you wouldn't be a total doofus taking two Ethereals. So let's take a look at the changes.

Ethereals

Grants 2 auras every turn and one of them can be switched to whatever you want (take notes Daemons). They still have independent character so you can give them a nice escort of Firewarriors or kroot. I'm a little bit confused on whether his abilities can be used on Allies of Convenience. It's not a psychic ability so I say yes. Regardless the Ethreal grants some nice benefits to your army, can take some drones (just not missile drones but who cares) and can give your Firewarriors a good porcupine defense (circular perimeter with fusillades of fire and and Aegis). 

Their new abilities are great but do not take their CC weapons or upgrades. They'll just die anyways. Speaking of dying, this guy is great at it. He's pretty much got the stats of a guardsmen but has 1 extra wound and no saves whatsoever. If he dies he's worth 2 victory points. Shucks. 

The three warlord traits that you can have with this guy are all very beneficial to your army or your unit. Therefore Ethereals are poor alone but with others can be excellent. Join them to a gaggle of Devastator Marines with missile launchers to bring down flyers. Join them to a unit of 20 Firewarriors oh wait! You can only take 12. What. It's actually better to join them to Kroot.  

6 Pulse Rifles vs. 10 Kroot rifles w/Ethereal +1 shot

vs. MEQ 18 shots, 4+ to hit, 3+ to wound, 3+ save means 2 wounds average

vs. FX same deal, but 2+ to wound and no saves so 7.5 wounds average now. Swag.

Kroot rifles are also rapid fire (woo!) so 3 shots each or 30 shots total

vs. MEQ 30 shots, 4+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 3+ save is 2.5 wounds average

vs. FX same 30 shots is 6.66 wounds average. 

What's neat here is that the units are practically equal, what's unique though is that the Kroot can get sniper rounds which are just totally awesome. Rending, Pinning, yada yada, really the Kroot and Firewarriors won't be moving anyways (gunline remember?) so having Heavy 1 weapons isn't a bad deal. If I'm taking Tau, I'm taking an Ethereal and I'm taking Kroot. I just want to show it's pretty justified. Also the problem of Kroot's awful save is sorted out by the fact that you'll always have them in cover. Right? Right.

Hmmm, he can have a homing beacon for 5 points. Wow, Daemons needed a goddamn warlord trait for that. Just thought I'd bring up how terri-bad their Warlord traits are.

Cadre Fireblade

Pretty much the gun version of Ethreal. He only has 1 power but it allows you to have an extra shot at maximum range. He gets split-fire too but not really useful with Kroot or Firewarriors. You could join him to a Broadside unit and if he has the Skyfire trait bring down two Flyers or two tanks...I mean light vehicles. S8 nonsense. You could also join him to a unit of Wraithguard: With split-fire you can glance to death multiple Rhinos per turn. Honestly with this guy and some Farseer and Warlock behind an Aegis you can sincerely camp the whole game. 

Hmmm, yeah if you take this guy he's a fantastic ally or with allies. If you take this guy you need Eldar or Space Marines to really benefit from him even though he buffs pulse weapons. His photon grenades also make it harder to assault your unit. He works reeaaally well with others. 

In the end, take the Cadre Fireblade as an ally and have him buff your shooting or take him in the main force to have him buff your ally's shooting. Neato!

Commander

Proper music to play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKLd2Ht36n0

The commander is two parts awesome one part hope you don't get charged. Man, getting real sick of this codexes complete inability to deal with punching. But wait! He can punch back! 1 punch. But it's more like Bruce Lee's 1 inch punch than the sissy slaps the rest of the army has. 

Signature systems are the niche in which this guy can be made to thrive. The Puretide Mouthful can get really OP since your commander can join random units that never get any of those rules. Although Furious Charge only counts for him the other 4 rules benefit his whole unit. Imagine this badboy joining aforementioned Wraithguard and granting them Tank Hunters. They now have a 88% chance of glancing or better if they hit. What the what, good bye Land Raiders. God, have a Farseer Guide them. GG vehicles, they're guaranteed to kill 1 a turn. They can also turn their attention closer and wipe a squad. 

You can also get the Command and Control Node and the Multi-spectrum more words and nothing else on your dude. He becomes a well-armored buff. Everyone in his unit re-rolls to hit and ignores cover. It's a really awesome thing to have but the units in this army with really good shooting that would benefit from this are usually twin-linked anyways so no re-rolls on your re-roll. Join him to a Riptide though and over-charge your Ion Accelerator and toast some camping baddies or rock some vehicle hidden in a church (hey man, I don't know what your terrain is). Again I come to Wraithguards with this one as a potentially great combo, you can also try it on some devastators with their cute little missile launchers (lol not S:X weapons? Plebes.) Ahhh if only it was an aura. Jesus though if it was a 12'' aura. GG the tactic of 'moving across the field'. Each person sits on their respective side eyeing the other.

Another funny combo: Commander, Cadre Fireblade, C&C Node, Multi-spectrum, 12 Firewarriors w/Carbines. All joined together you have 18'' re-roll to hit Assault 3 S5 AP5 shooting. 36 shots with those rules kill 6 MEQ a turn or, more importantly, 22 FX a turn. Nice! Combo only costs 283 points too but you can only have 1 per army. Saddest face. Cool thing though is that with supporting fire you can kill 9 FX with Overwatch, which is insane. If you can get close enough to a blob you can remove huge chunks of it every turn. 

The Iridium armor is pretty good but you'll want to have a shield generator too if you're making your Commander survivable so think of it as 2+/4++, +1T for 50 points. You could save money on some shield drones (1 point less than generator) and you might just take them anyways but really, I'd have a lot of trouble reasoning this through onto my list. My Commander doesn't need to be an extra bodyguards worth of expense. Oddly you can take a Shield Drone and a Bodyguard for the points needed to make him survivable and have 2 points left over for a Neuroweb. 

The Onager Gauntlet and the Repulsor Field are relatively useless. If you're in CC you're probably hoping to get out of there as soon as possible and having 1 sweet attack is kinda meaningless. I mean you only have a 50% chance to hit against most people who will challenge you. And even then the chance of rolling a 1 makes it so that you only have a 42% chance of hitting. I mean is it worth 5 points? Yes. But I wouldn't spend those points on this if other options were available. Repulsor field just kinda sucks. d6 S4 AP- gives you .5 wounds vs. MEQ or .66 vs. FX. It's a bit who cares and is pretty expensive to boot. You could get a TL Flamer for the same amount so why don't you?

The support systems are pretty awesome when you get some twin-linked weaponry. It's a shame you can only take 4 total. Velocity Tracker and Early Warning Override are both great. It can get a little OP when you have both on a Riptide. He can just chose to rape flyers or people every turn. If you Deep Strike within 72'' of him he can shoot you. That seems fair? Not too useful to have both on a battlesuit though. Maybe the Velocity Tracker. The other support systems I'm not too thrilled with. Maybe Target lock and Vectored Retro-thrusters. I'd be much more likely to take the later than the first. Failsafe Detonator is still stupid. Oh, he explodes and kills his own unit. Fantastic. Stimulant Injector is meh, Feel No Pain is okay but your slots are valuable. Counterfire Defense system is kinda crappy too because it's benefit is just conferred to the model with it, not his units. 

Positional relay can do some cool shenanigans, especially when you have some infiltrators. Popping up from any edge is great. If you get Ghost Who Walks among us you can probably fly within 2 turns to your opponent's edge and bring in some reinforcements. Since you'll probably take a lot of Kroot this can be really nice. 

Lots of neat combos with this guy with the Signature systems, he's still good as a gun platform on his own. His bodyguard are over-priced so just take Crisis Suit Elites if you want a bodyguard. Also, if you have more than 1 points left over take a Neuroweb Jammer. It's not good but it's 2 points. So therefore it's great. 

So, in the end your Commander has a lot of good upgrades and you'll definitely want Signature systems with him. Just the cheap ones mind you. You will want a Puretide Engram Neurochip though. Just take one. Seriously. What are doing now? Go over to your battlesuit and put one on. Jesus. 

Haha just thought of another combo: Neuro Engram and put your commander on a Aegis. Tank Hunter BS5 TL Heavy 4 Autocannon? Yes. Yes I'll take that. 

Conclusions

The basic HQ's have a lot to offer and, in my opinion, are way better than the special characters, except maybe Aun'va. Can't believe I'm saying that but his ld 10 aura and double elemental power ability pretty much make him into 2 Ethereals anyways. Too bad he can't leave his absolute shit honor guard. 

With any of these you really have to build your army around them, much more so than in other armies. These guys also work extremely well with battle brother armies (Space Marines and Eldar) and can be used in good conjunction with their units. I see the Cadre Fireblade and Commander more as Ally HQ's than the Commander but all three of them can go in your main detachment.

To be honest though with Tau like this it's really sad that the rest of their army is costed poorly and just bad. Tau, in my opinion mind you, have become much more of an Ally army than a stand-alone badass army. You can't take enough Firewarriors, Crisis Suits, Broadsides or Vehicles to really put the hurt down on your opponent. We'll get to that later though.

Suffice it to say Ethereals are now awesome, Cadre Fireblades are okay and Commander's have some realllly powerful upgrades that make parts of your army into monsters.

If you've found any interesting combos with equipment or these HQ's post them in the comments below.